


Observer Effect

by weakinteraction



Category: Doctor Who: Eighth Doctor Adventures - Various Authors
Genre: 69 (Sex Position), Ambiguous/Open Ending, Drunk Sex, M/M, Porn With Weirdness, References to Adventuress of Henrietta Street, References to unresolved Fitz/Eight, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:34:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24117316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weakinteraction/pseuds/weakinteraction
Summary: In the abandoned farm cottage, after Guernica.
Relationships: Fitz Kreiner/Sasha
Comments: 12
Kudos: 7
Collections: Wayback Exchange 2020





	Observer Effect

**Author's Note:**

  * For [venndaai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/gifts).



> Missing scene starting halfway down p.140; the first line of dialogue is the last thing Fitz says before the scene change in the novel.

"No," Fitz said. "There's only one version of the truth."

Even as the words escaped his lips, he knew they were a lie. It was only when Sasha said "Whatever ends up in your report, eh?" that he realised they were, at least, a lie that fit with his cover story.

Fitz looked up at the ceiling again. It seemed to be swirling before his eyes now, in imitation of the way they had swirled some of the wine around before drinking it, posing as connoisseurs. Sasha had been scandalised at first, but had then followed Fitz's lead and settled rather well into posing as a member of the bourgeoisie. Or was the ceiling swirling because history was swirling, the different versions of the bombing of Guernica that he had witnessed -- no, that _they_ had witnessed, given what Sasha had just confessed about his own perceptions -- all overlaid on top of one another, the appalling horror of it leached out in some of them, just as it had been in the painting he'd seen with the Doctor and Anji in Paris, in Sasha's future and Fitz's own past.

No, it was probably the wine, Fitz decided. They had had a _lot_ of it, after all.

"And what will your report say about me?" Sasha went on, when Fitz hadn't said anything for a while.

Fitz hiccupped as he tried to answer. "You said yourself the other day: you've been trying to make a good impression so I'll write nice things about you for ... our organisation."

"And have I succeeded?"

"You haven't threatened me with that gun of yours anywhere near as often recently," Fitz said. "That's progress, isn't it?"

Sasha laughed heartily. "Oh, Fitz, I would never shoot you." His eyes narrowed. "Unless you acted in a counterrevolutionary manner, of course." Fitz was just starting to worry when he laughed again.

"Right," Fitz said nervously.

"I'm not even sure the gun works reliably," Sasha said, in a manner that Fitz thought was probably supposed to be reassuring.

Sasha sighed. The feeling of his deep exhalation, the way it seemed to fill the room, the way the bed creaked slightly, suddenly made Fitz very aware of how close they were lying to one another. It was only logical for them to do so -- this cottage, belonging to some impoverished farm labourer, did not afford the luxury of separate sleeping accommodation, and they both badly needed as good a night's sleep as they could get, even if they had to share this small bed to get it. But the warmth of Sasha near him was stirring feelings that Fitz wasn't entirely sure he was ready to acknowledge.

"I am not sure you are right," Sasha said after a moment. "That there is only one version of the truth." Fitz wondered where this was going, his mind stumbling around, in the same way his body would have been if he hadn't been safely horizontal for the moment, through what he knew of this period of history. It was only a few years since Stalin had taken over; was Sasha referring to his leader's penchant for rewriting history? If so, how much trouble could he get in if anyone knew his true opinions on such matters? Sasha must be confident that whoever Fitz was working for, the report he was supposedly writing wouldn't make its way back to the NKVD. Or, perhaps, he was confident that Fitz would choose to leave certain things out. Or, perhaps Fitz's darkest suspicions were right and Sasha wasn't a Russian agent at all. Perhaps that was just a cover for something else.

Before he had a chance to work out how to articulate the right sort of question about any of that, Sasha said, "I think being around you has an effect on _my_ truth." And that was when Fitz felt Sasha's hand on his side, and a moment later, the warmth of his breath as he closed in to kiss him.

As Fitz yielded to the kiss, his mind cast around again, thinking back to the night they had shared in the back of the truck. They had been forced close together beneath the scratchy blankets they had abstracted from the supplies, and perhaps for just a moment Fitz had felt some sort of tension between the two of them. But they had both been too exhausted that night for anything to happen, and they had been out in the open. Was it the wine that now gave Sasha more courage, or the privacy of this cottage? Or, perhaps, was it the atrocities they had witnessed that had left both of them desperate for some sort of human connection?

Fitz was reminded again, uncomfortably, of the possibility that Sasha was a traveller too, like him. He'd started the odyssey that had led them here as an attempt -- or so he'd told himself -- to extract information from Sasha. What if what was happening now was some sort of attempt on Sasha's part to do the same to him? Or what if it was simply that Sasha was from the future -- the future that he'd visited more than once, the one that Anji had described to him -- where, if things weren't at all perfect, they were at least better, and a man making a pass at another man wouldn't have been anything much to think of?

But then, as Sasha's hand began to wander inside his clothes, the shock of skin directly against skin, Fitz felt his doubts subside. He realised with a sudden moment of drunken clarity that it was _he_ who was desperate for some sort of human connection, and here it was. He moved his own hands from where they had flopped awkwardly, starting to unbutton Sasha's shirt, fumbling with the buttons. Eventually he was able to tug it free from his trousers, and he bent down to kiss Sasha's nipples; he could tell that his stubble was scratching against Sasha's chest, but Sasha didn't seem to mind -- indeed, as Fitz sucked hard on one nipple, Sasha's hand suddenly shot down to his crotch and began stroking his cock. It was only then that Fitz knew how hard he had become, and yet he could also feel the effects of his drunkenness, keeping him from being quite as stiff as he usually would have been at this sudden arousal.

Sasha's eyes widened as Fitz manoeuvred himself lower down the bed; there was a momentary look of disappointment when Fitz's movements forced Sasha's hand away from his cock. But disappointment turned to delight when Fitz undid Sasha's trousers and pulled them untidily down, just enough to reveal his cock. Fitz kissed the head of it gently, then took it slowly into his mouth, feeling it stiffen as he slid his lips further and further down.

He could feel Sasha moving around on the bed. He assumed that he was simply getting into a more comfortable position, so was taken by surprise when he felt his own trousers being removed, and Sasha's mouth enveloping his cock.

Any sense of control that he might, however haphazardly, have had, deserted Fitz entirely at that moment. He began jerking his head back and forth wildly, at the same time as his hips bucked at the feeling of Sasha's tongue on his cock. Sasha was doing the exact same thing, his cock now pushing hard up against the roof of Fitz's mouth, which only served to turn Fitz on even more. There was far more enthusiasm than technique in what they were doing now, not so much a sixty-nine as a mutual facefucking. Fitz slurped greedily at Sasha's cock, and when it finally began to spurt deep inside his mouth, Fitz swallowed, the acrid taste a sudden shock to his wine-furred tongue.

He kept Sasha's cock in his mouth as it began to soften. For a moment, Fitz thought that perhaps he was going to fall asleep, and he would have to work out how to curl up in whatever remained of the bed to sleep through the night, but then he felt Sasha's lips wrap themselves much more firmly than before around his cock, and his tongue begin to dance across the tip, a complex rhythm that built and made Fitz grow harder yet. He knew that, were it not for the wine, he would already have come, and found himself guiltily glad of this opportunity to enjoy such a fantastic blowjob for so long. Eventually, though, when his climax came, it felt longer, more drawn out, than usual.

Suddenly, Fitz's entire body was covered in goosebumps. And not in a good way.

The room still seemed solid enough, but the sense of uncertainty he'd felt earlier about the ceiling's continued existence now applied, horribly, sickeningly, to Sasha. Even as his cock slipped out of Fitz's mouth, it was as though Sasha was a multitude of men, all at once: all the possibilities of him; all the different versions of his truth.

Here was Sasha, the Russian agent with whom Fitz had forged a wary alliance, growing steadily closer with their shared experiences of hardship and horror. Here too was Sasha, the Russian who dealt in secrets but had to keep secrets of his own from his own people, the secrets -- the truths -- of his innermost self, but had trusted Fitz enough to reveal those truths to him.

But, at the same time -- in the same space, part of the same event -- this was the man who'd seen the same thing Fitz had during the day-long bombing, the flickering between possibilities that now seemed to apply _to_ him. If that were true, and if the Doctor was right -- which he usually was -- Sasha must be another time traveller. And if _that_ was true, the possibilities multiplied further, a dizzying kaleidoscope. Was he some mysterious new player on the scene? Or an old friend the Doctor would no longer recognise, keeping an eye on things? Or -- and this was the worst possibility, the one that would have represented betrayal and deceit in all directions -- was he one of Sabbath's agents, yet again one step ahead of the TARDIS crew?

The man in front of him was completely solid, wonderfully yielding flesh and firm bone in the right places, and yet he was also the superposition of all those possibilities at once. Fitz could feel reality lurching around him, but was it reality, or just his perception of it? Despite all Anji's needling, he hadn't partaken of the pleasures -- or, more to the point, the rites -- on offer in Scarlette's bordello. But he'd heard enough -- some of it gossip, some of it teasing, more than he would have expected sincere mystical belief -- of _Shaktyanda_ and everything else; of the alter-time states that could be accessed during sex. Is that what was happening to him now? Or was it, in the end, just all the wine sloshing around his system?

"Fitz?"

He blinked, groggily, and eventually Sasha was just Sasha again, the man who he'd just had some very satisfying sex with, now crouched in bed next to him and looking at him with concern. Whatever was going on, the human connection that had been established between them was the most important, right now.

"Are you all right?"

Fitz smiled. "Better than all right," he said, as lightly as he could.

"I am glad to hear it," Sasha said. "You seemed--"

"I'm sorry," Fitz said. "It was just ... very intense."

Sasha grinned. "I will take that as a compliment."

They rearranged themselves until they were lying on the pillows, and kissed once more, tasting themselves on each other's lips. Fitz pulled the threadbare coverings up over the two of them as best he could; the night was getting colder now.

"And will this make it into this mysterious report of yours?" Sasha asked.

Fitz thought of the Doctor, who would indeed be receiving a report of sorts; thought of all the times he had imagined doing something similar with him. He knew he would never be able to articulate what had happened here tonight, even if he wanted to, not in a way that would make sense to the Doctor. Not in a way that he would want to admit to the Doctor.

Not in a way that wouldn't run the risk of breaking the Doctor's one remaining heart.

"No," he said eventually, feeling a little ashamed of the fact, even though he thought it was the answer Sasha wanted -- or needed -- to hear.

"Da," Sasha said. "Maybe there is only one version of the truth, maybe not. But ... not all truths need to be told."


End file.
